Ain't that a kick?
The Shins?? indie credibility is being tested by big mainstream sales.
By TIMOTHY FINN
The Kansas City Star
In the latest issue of Rolling Stone (with Panic! At the Disco on the cover), James Mercer of the Shins discusses his band??s popularity.
In display type, the editors paraphrased his quote this way: ??Indie bands are becoming popular because people are sick of fakeness.?
There??s much to analyze in that short sentence, but let??s start with the premise that the Shins are an indie band. They??re on Sub Pop, the famous Seattle label, which likes to think of itself as an indie label.
But Sub Pop is almost half-owned (49 percent) by Warner Bros., which also owns 95 percent of Sub Pop??s distributor, ADA.
When the Shins?? new album, ??Wincing the Night Away,? landed at No. 2 on the Billboard charts the week of its release (about 110,000 copies sold), the label sent out a memo in which ADA??s president, Andy Allen, called the Shins?? chart performance ??an amazing milestone week in independent music.?
The press release goes on to laud the intense media blitz organized by Sub Pop, which included cover stories in Magnet, Paste and Filter and articles in Rolling Stone, Spin, Blender and GQ. It also included TV appearances on the David Letterman show, ??Saturday Night Live? and MTV??s ??Subterranean.?
The day my Rolling Stone arrived, I was shopping at a couple of big department stores that also sell recorded music. In each, ??Wincing? was given a prominent display, cheek by jowl with releases by John Mellencamp and the ??2007 Grammy Nominees? collection.
Like the CDs around it, ??Wincing? was tagged with a nice opening-week discount.
In the longer version of his quote, Mercer compares the rise of indie bands like his to the gentrification of old buildings and houses, such as the one he recently moved into in Portland, Ore.: ??Growing up in the age of Wal-Mart and 7-Eleven ?? which is the landscape of my youth ?? I??m craving authenticity.?
But only to a point, apparently. Wal-Mart is one of the big retailers offering ??Wincing? at a discount ($9.72 this week) on an end-of-aisle rack, right next to CDs by ??American Idol? Katharine McPhee and the randy rap quartet Pretty Ricky.
So where does the ??indie? line begin and end?
??The Shins are more indie than most bands because, at least on their first two albums, they recorded everything themselves, which gives them some indie credibility,? said Shannon Schlappi, who co-owns the Kansas City label Drama Club Records. ??And they have stayed true to their music, even on the new album. But as popular as they are right now, ??indie?? may be more a state of mind than reality.?
Not if you operate an independent music store and rely on bands like the Shins to bring in customers looking for under-the-radar music. Those stores are having a hard time competing with the major chains whose inventories these days include smaller, true-blue indie bands whose music is in the hands of large distributors. Best Buy, for example, is carrying new (and low-priced) CDs from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Of Montreal.
??As an indie merchant, it pains me,? said Steve Wilson, a musician and manager of Kief??s Downtown Music in Lawrence. (Wilson is also an occasional freelance music reviewer for The Star.) ??You like to think there is some indie fealty and some recognition for the roles stores like ours play in establishing artists?? careers. But it??s a ??what have you done for me lately?? world.?
Zach Hangauer, who owns Range Life Records in Lawrence, said it comes down to a choice that is not always in a band??s control.
??I can??t imagine anyone who makes real indie music or longtime indie fans who think that having a CD available at Wal-Mart is a good thing,? he said. ??There is just something inherent in that subculture that is counter to that. ? So you have this identity chasm between what??s good for sales and what??s good for the audience.
??But, to me, it seems like it??s more the influence of the old lumbering record industry and the huge retail distribution system than it is any ambitions from artists or bands.?
There is something more at stake in this than just semantics and credibility among music hipsters. Last month the Hollywood Reporter discussed a proposal by the Federal Communications Commission and its investigation into record-industry payola to radio broadcasters.
If adopted, a new FCC proposal would require radio stations to dedicate a certain amount of time to independently produced music. Schlappi said he has already seen movement in that direction with his label??s band, the Changes.
??We got added to WXRT in Chicago,? he said. ??And we were on Indie-103 in Los Angeles. So it seems like we??re in an easier time getting things like that going.?
So would bands in the Shins?? position qualify as independent? Mari Malcolm thinks so. She is the managing editor for music at Amazon.com, the largest online retailer. She thinks the Shins are the same band, but its audience is changing and growing.
??I think they??re still pushing the envelope creatively and still true to their spirit,? she said. ??But it??s kind of funny ? (Amazon) customers who bought the Shins also bought the new Norah Jones album.?
In fact, this week the two best-selling records at Amazon were Norah Jones?? ??Not Too Late? and the Shins?? ??Wincing.?
If that??s another sign that indie bands really are becoming more popular, Malcolm said, some of that has to do with how independent artists are getting their music heard without radio airplay. She mentions TV commercials that feature Cat Power (for diamonds), the Go! Team (Honda) and Iron & Wine (M&M??s).
One of the best examples of media-mixing, though, is the Shins?? getting two songs in the very mainstream movie ??Garden State.?
??Natalie Portman actually says their name in the movie,? Schlappi said. ??You can??t buy marketing like that. Well, maybe you can.?
In fact, he??s trying, though not necessarily on his own. No matter how small they are, bands and labels who want to succeed have to play with the big boys, at least while physical distribution is necessary.
Schlappi??s label uses Fontana Distribution, an affiliate of the behemoth Universal Music. Hangauer and his label just entered a deal with the very independent label Saddle Creek in Omaha. Its distributor: ADA, the Warner machine that distributes the Shins.
And then there??s the latest issue of Paste magazine, which features the Shins on the cover. Schlappi??s band, the Changes, is one of the ??Four to Watch? artists in the magazine. It also has the lead-off song on the 20-cut CD sampler. The Shins?? song is No. 2.
??You have to pay to get a song on that,? he said, ??but you figure they??d give the first cut to the band on the cover. Instead, it??s us. It??s a little victory, but we??re excited about it.?
He says it almost like a guy who just slipped one by a big band on a big label.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
